Almost finished…

Well, the year of social service is almost over. Only four more weeks and Martin will have completed his long year in the very rural village of Las Minas. He has so many experiences to share, but so little time to share them right now. I have brought pictures to town today to give you a glimpse of his life there. He has been able to come home very little during the last month due to the rains and the rivers flooding all around Las Minas. You may remember that he has 7 rivers to cross on his motorcycle and none of them have bridges. Flash flooding is very common and sometimes he just can´t get out to come home. But knowing that it´s almost over makes all the difficulties bearable. The kids have begun to say that they´ll have their Dad back in December and I smile at the thought of having my husband back as well.

One of Martin´s responsibilities for this post in Las Minas is to hike and visit the schools and neighboring communities that border his village. Sometimes it means hiking 3 or 4 hours straight up a mountain, all the while shouting ¨the doctor is coming, come to the school-house!”. It is a very old-fashioned sort of doctoring, but the only way to get it done in this remote jungle setting. In the picture above left he is visiting a neighboring school with his nurse Suyapa giving vaccinations to the children. The second picture is taken outside of his clinic in Las Minas.

The family that lives next door to Martin have been his care-takers and provided meals for him during the past eleven months. He has grown to love them and their youngest daughter has taken a liking to nursing and assists Martin most days after school. What a blessing it would be to see 12 year old Jessica (front, left in the picture) go to Nursing School one day and return to Las Minas to work in the clinic there! In these pictures he is celebrating Independence Day on September 15th with the killing of the family pig! He said it was a great day and lots of fun for everyone. And he finally got to eat something besides the daily dish of “Beans & Tortillas”!

Well, I thought I would give you a glimpse of Life in Las Minas. Martin will soon finish and spend a month or more in the capital city of Tegucigalpa getting all his paperwork ready for graduation, not to mention turning in and defending his Thesis. He remains busy and quite stressed over the work that is required during this final push towards graduation. Keep him in your prayers for safety and strength. Thanks for your emails and words of encouragement!